


lights will guide you home and ignite your bones

by Jay Auris (nighthawkms)



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Podrick doesn't have time for this shit, The last tag will be a lie in like 5 days, post 8x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 18:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighthawkms/pseuds/Jay%20Auris
Summary: In the aftermath of battle, there are no more secrets between them.





	lights will guide you home and ignite your bones

**Author's Note:**

> First time doing Game of Thrones fic! These two are too good to not write about. Be gentle, dear reader, though considerate critique is always welcome.

The Long Night is over. The battle is won. Before them lie the bodies of brave men, struck down. Never to rise again, never to stare through eyes of ice blue -- lifeless, never more to be mindlessly flung towards the living.

Jaime can barely stand. His blood no longer boils with the terror and the rage and the lust of battle that drove him through this night, that kept him wide-eyed and swinging his blade as though the soul of his lost right hand had possessed his left. He will never fight that well again, until the day he dies. No swordsman or battalion or army of the living could strike such a fear through him -- drive him to struggle for life, to flee from an undeath -- as did the army of the Night King.

Across the courtyard, he can see Snow bolting for the path to the godswood. It's an obvious choice; if the youngest Lord Stark had been correct, the Night King had come for him and been struck down there. Snow had been preoccupied with a dragon earlier, if Jaime remembers right, seeing flashes of Snow's figure and blue fire as Jaime fought off the dead swarming around him. Snow wasn't the one to strike the final blow, then. So, who had?

" _Jaime_ ," breathes a voice he prayed to the Seven would still be there at the end. He blinks and glances to his right. Ser Brienne of Tarth is grinning at him, shuddering with harsh breaths, eyes shining with triumph. She's as much a mess as he: hair matted with sweat and blood and dirt, armor grimy and scratched by clawing bone hands and the deflected blows of dull blades. It's the armor Jaime gave her, armor that kept her alive; bless the smiths of Kings Landing for the craftsmanship that kept her protected.

Brienne's sword, Oathkeeper, is flecked with mottled blood, gleaming in the firelight. Another gift from Jaime, and twin to his own blade. Fighting in the dark, side by side, there were moments where Jaime felt as if he and Brienne moved as one, channeling the spirit of the ancestral Ice in their dance with death. The sword is gone, but its purpose lives on through them.

Jaime grins back at Brienne. The look of triumph sits beautifully on her face. "Well fought, Ser Brienne," he says. "Your first battle as a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. How does it feel?"

Brienne drops her sword, stumbling towards him. For one agonizing moment, Jaime's gut is gripped with fear -- oh gods, is she hurt? is she injured? what has happened? gods be good, don't let her die now, _I can't lose her now._  But no, she only stumbles from exhaustion; he sees how she catches herself, using the momentum to take another two steps towards him. She raises her hands, fingers shaking as she cups either side of Jaime's jaw, a new kind of fear laced through her eyes.

Jaime is frozen, too shocked by the intimacy of the touch. It's an allowance he's ached to have but never dared. Brienne is not his to have. She is all that is pure and good and noble, all that a knight should be. She deserves more than being dragged down to his level, for the sake of soothing his lovelorn heart.

Yet here she stands, feet planted like ancient weirwood trees in the frost, cradling his face tenderly, looking at him as though he is the light of the Seven. He cannot speak, the words die on his lips. It doesn't matter; she asks him for what she wants with a look alone, and he gives the barest of nods. She leans in...

" _Arya Stark has killed the Night King!_ " The roar comes loud across the courtyard from the godswood, and Brienne springs back as a wave of cheers echoes through the night. The blooming warmth of her hands is replaced with the lashing cold of the dawn wind. Jaime gasps harshly; the loss of her touch is a knife through his chest.

Brienne still stares at him, lips barely parted in careful breaths. She seems as if she has just come out of a daze, unable to believe what she had almost- had she almost? Had he been mistaken in her intentions? No, he's a fool but not about this. He read the want on her face. Still reads it, in fact.

"Brienne..." Jaime begins.

She shifts away from him, looking behind him. " _Pod-rick_ ," she stutters, and Jaime glances back to see the boy, who's staring at them both, scandalized by the display, as if he's caught his own parents fornicating. "Podrick," Brienne says again, more emphatically. "The crypts, if you would. Lady Sansa-"

"Yes, ah, uh, of course, m'lady!" Podrick stammers. "I'll go check, make sure everyone's alright and report back." He looks as worn as them both as he flees, but getting away from them during this awkward moment must be worth the aches and pains.

Brienne leans over and picks up her sword, then straightens up and turns away from him. He swallows, tasting bitter blood and grit, watching her tug a cloth from her boot to wipe the grime from the blade. She says nothing; the roar of the living, cheering for victory, is a background noise to the silence between them.

Jaime takes a step towards her. "Brienne?"

No response. Her head stays bowed, eyes affixed to the blade as she cleans the steel of the worst grime and muck. It will need resharpening and better cleaning later.

He takes another step, close enough to rest his left hand on her shoulder. "Brienne," Jaime tries a third time, "Look at me."

"I shall not," Brienne finally responds. She's stopped cleaning the blade, and tucks the cloth into her belt, keeping her eyes down.

"Would you not be disagreeable for bloody once?" Jaime tugs at her shoulder. "You stubborn woman, _look at me._ "

Brienne yanks her shoulder away. "I'm glad you're alive, ser," she says, sheathing her sword. "I shouldn't have sent Pod, I shall see to my lady myself." Then, without another word, she strides away, not as fast or as smoothly as she normally would, but far faster than Jaime has the energy to follow.

"I shall find you later, then?" Jaime calls out, but Brienne is halfway across the courtyard, and does not give a reply. Jaime sighs and slumps back against the wall, pushing a hand through his hair.

Gods, he could use a drink. And a bath. And an explanation for what just happened.

~

The surviving army is surprisingly larger than Jaime expected. They've still taken grievous losses -- and some cries of joy turn to anguish when the men discover many of their wives and children dead in the crypt -- but they have won the day, and they are still an army for the Dragon Queen.

The cheers are deafening when a mob of men bursts from the godswood, carrying the little Lady Stark atop their shoulders, crying praise for "The Night King Slayer." Jaime finds irony in how adding one little word to a title can make the difference between a hero and a villain. But he holds no malice for the girl -- the opposite, in fact. He's grown an appreciation for women who refuse to emulate the Maiden and chose the Warrior instead.

The men work over the next hours to gather the bodies that lie in the halls of the castle into great piles in the courtyard of Winterfell, and then set them alight. There will be no chances taken today; no matter if the Night King is dead, some superstitions will never die. The air smells of burnt flesh, sickening Jaime's stomach, but better that than a blue-eyed dead man sticking a blade in his back while he sleeps.

Only when the dead have been cleared from the castle do they think of rest. The Dragon Queen and Jon Snow order all of the men and all of the commanders to take shifts. Some will continue working to burn the rest of the bodies in the keep and around the walls, while the rest will clean themselves and break fast and sleep as long as they can manage. The battle for the world of men is over, but the battle for the throne is not yet won. They must march towards the capital as soon as they can, though that will likely be several weeks from now.

Jaime's been given a small room at the far end of the castle. He returns to find it thankfully undisturbed by their undead visitors, and strips off his armor and scrubs as much blood and dirt and muck as he can from his hair and face and hands. The washing water is blackened by the time he's done, but he feels more human, and less like a wild animal, as he'd felt during the final moments of that battle, clawing and twisting, desperately trying to escape the dead, to fight his way to Brienne and put himself between them and her. Thinking of her stirs a twist in his gut; it isn't lust, it's a desperate need to see her at once. He's exhausted, but the need overrides his want of sleep. He shrugs on enough clothing to make himself look presentable walking the halls, and leaves his room.

The sun is setting by this hour, and the halls are darkened enough for Jaime to see the glow of a candle coming from under Brienne's doorway. He stops in front and listens; the sound of rustling papers comes from within. He swallows back a knot in his throat, which can't be from fear -- when has he ever been _afraid_  to talk to Brienne? -- and then knocks.

He hears a few footsteps, and the door swings open. "You can't have gone there and back al-" Brienne says, freezing when she realizes it's Jaime. She's stripped her armor off and cleaned herself off, and now wears only a shirt and trousers -- not enough for polite company, but when has Jaime ever been polite?

"You were expecting someone else?" Jaime asks, frowning. "Nothing to do with your state of undress, I hope?"

Brienne scowls. "I sent Podrick to get me something. I thought you were him."

Jaime smirks. "Apologies, I'm far too tall and blond to play your errand boy. May I come in?"

"I..." Brienne hesitates, and she seems genuinely torn about the decision. "I'm not sure that's wise."

"You've often accused me of being unwise, so this isn't out of the ordinary."

"Jaime-"

"Please." Jaime tries to put every bit of sincerity that he's ever lacked into his voice. "Just to talk, I promise. You have my _oath_  on the matter."

Brienne eyes him for another moment, then sighs and opens the door farther. "Alright, come in."

Brienne's room is sparse: a simple bed with a straw mattress, a stand for her armor, a short wardrobe for her few other garments, and a writing desk covered in some papers. Jaime glances over the papers as Brienne shuts the door. The outline of a city on the top sheet is highly familiar. "King's Landing?" he asks as she comes over to stand beside him.

"Strategies I've been mulling over," Brienne responds, leaning over the desk, resting her hands on top of the wood. "For when we..." She pauses, eyes flicking to his before looking back down. "When we storm the city and place the Dragon Queen on the throne."

Words go unsaid. _When we fight your sister. When we destroy her army. When she is dragged off the Iron Throne, kicking and screaming, and executed on the spot. Or when we find her sitting on the throne, having slit her own throat, unwilling to be taken._

Jaime leans over, resting his metal hand on the desk, and his left hand over Brienne's right. She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't look at him either. She's chewing on her lip, and her whole body is stiff, unmoving. She's scared, he realizes. Ser Brienne of Tarth has faced down a bloody bear, Sandor Clegane and the whole army of the dead, but this thing between them, this is what she's afraid of?

He leaves his hand for a moment longer, then draws it away and points to a portcullis on the west side of the city. "There's a sewer passage hidden beneath here. It's not on these plans."

"There is?" Brienne frowns, picking up the graphite stick lying on the desk and using it to mark the spot. "That's useful. A whole army can't fit through, but a small band could help us open the main gate from within."

Jaime shakes his head. "Cersei likely knows of it, unfortunately. If she's smart, she'll fill it with wildfire and expect to blow us all to pieces. But she may not realize the structure above is unstable. I noted it when I did patrols on the Kingsguard. If we can bait her into blowing up the sewer beneath, we may trigger a collapse of the city walls on that side."

"Us. We," Brienne says, standing up straight and folding her arms. "It sounds as though you'll be joining us in this fight."

Jaime frowns. "You expect me to stay behind in Winterfell like some ancient maester to oversee the reconstruction? Surely I was at least _competent_ in the last fight, if not as impressive as I used to be."

Brienne shakes her head, and sighs. "You said you came here to fight for the living. You've done what you said you would. I assumed you'd have snuck off on a horse and been halfway back to King's Landing by now."

Jaime is too shocked to respond for a few moments. It takes him far longer than it should to put the pieces together; Tyrion was always the quick-witted one, not him.

"You thought I'd go back to Cersei," Jaime says, turning to face Brienne full on. "You thought I'd join her again. That we'd be on opposite sides of the war, and you'd have to meet me on the battlefield and fight me. And you'd have to kill me." A pained look crosses her face at his words, and she closes her eyes. It's true then.

"You're a good man, Ser Jaime," Brienne says. "But I know what she means to you, and every time you need to make a choice, you choose her."

"I didn't here," Jaime points out. "I came to Winterfell. I stood in front of the Targaryen girl and took the chance that I would die, and I probably would have if you hadn't spoken for me."

"If the Night King had destroyed us here, it would have ended for Cersei too," Brienne says. The lines on her face are filled with shadows in the flickering candlelight. She seems so much older, and wiser, and harder than she was when Jaime first met her. She continues. "Coming to fight with us was the most logical way to protect her. I know where your- your heart lies, ser. I am no fool."

At first, all he feels is anger. She assumes to know him so well, and yet when he was in front of her in the courtyard -- waiting for her to embrace him, his want for her written across his face -- she ran from him. But he is older and wiser as well, and when he takes a pause to consider her words, he realizes she is right. What other presumption could she have made? For all his talk of serving under her command, and then knighting her, and then fighting by her side, he had promised nothing but survival. To fight for the living. Not for her.

"You aren't a fool, Brienne," Jaime says. She winces, and he knows she expects him to confirm it all. No, he is the fool, leaving enough uncertainty to hurt her this way. If he can kill a mad king, he can certainly work up the courage for some honesty.

Jaime nudges her shoulder, gently turning her to face him. She opens her eyes and looks at him. He meets it with a smile.

"That doesn't mean you're  _right_ , though," Jaime says, reaching up to cup her cheek. Her eyes widen, and he's heartened to find she leans into his touch. "Here, I'll show you where my heart lies."

And he leans up and kisses her. Softly, barely, leaving her room to pull away if she wishes.

Her mouth is cool, her lips chapped from the winter winds that blew around them hours ago as they fought for their own lives and the lives of all those who live now and those who are yet to live. He was there, with her, on that battlefield, of his own volition. He could've stayed safe in King's Landing, could've let the Night King decimate the Dragon Queen's army, and torn the rest to pieces, riding as the commander of his sister's army. He could've slit Euron Greyjoy's throat in the night, could've demanded the law give him the same benefit that the Targaryens had used to marry into their families to wed to Cersei and bear legitimate children with her, madness be damned. 

He could've chosen that. Eight years past, that would've been his choice. But today, and every day to come, he chooses Brienne.

Brienne stills for a brief moment. Then her hands wind their way around Jaime's hips, tugging him closer to deepen the kiss, and he responds in kind, resting his false hand on the small of her back and stroking her cheek with his thumb as he parts her lips with his tongue. She gasps, and he smiles against her mouth.

When he breaks off the kiss and leans back, he sees she's colored a lovely shade of pink, and looks delightfully shocked.

"Understand yet, my lady?" Jaime grins, feeling as flushed as a youth in the first pangs of romance. "Or do I need to make my point clearer?" He slides his hand from her cheek to trace down her neck, watching her shiver as he dips his fingers under her shirt, tracing the skin above her breast. "I'll be as thorough as I need to."

"You- you can't mean it," Brienne says, even as she's reaching up to cover his hand with her own. "How can you mean it?"

"Is it so impossible for you to believe it?" Jaime asks. "After everything we've been through?"

"I'm not someone you love, Jaime!" Brienne cries, with a force that raises his eyebrows. "Not- I don't mean _no one_ could love me. I mean _you_ , specifically."

"Hmmm, very big assumption on your part," Jaime retorts, smirking. "What proof do you have?"

"I'm far too tall for you," she begins, holding her hands up to list her points. "I'm near your age, far past when most women bear children, so I might never give you any. I'm plain-faced, some might say ugly, and look utterly out of place wearing dresses and jewels and womanly things." Her voice rises, louder, higher, more anxious. "I swing a bloody sword around and fight beside you like a brother-in-arms and I could never give this up, could never just faff about in a castle and bear your children and keep your home, and let you ride off to battle alone, because I could never stop myself from coming with you! Don't you see? I can't be anything but what I am, and what I am doesn't suit you."

"I'd thank you to let me decide what suits me," Jaime replies. Brienne has thrown so much at him in a short time, and he's angry; not at her, but at a world that would let her believe any of this. "And again, you're wrong. I don't want you to change anything, Brienne. I love you as you are, not as whatever idea you've got in your head of what I want you to be. You listed what you seem to consider flaws, so let me clarify your virtues. You're noble and kind and chivalrous and utterly obsessed with what's just and right. You've turned your body into a weapon to defend that justice, and there's no one I'd trust my life with over you. You've kept my confidence whether my secrets were good or ill, and you've pushed me to become a greater man. Perhaps someday I'll be half the knight you are. You're stubborn and brilliant and beautiful, Brienne - yes, that's what I said. You don't need bloody dresses and jewels. You need armor and swords and dirt on your face and blood in your hair. That's the Brienne I love."

Jaime can see Brienne's resolve crumbling. It's probably shocking to hear him admit how he sees her, as he's never said so much kindness to her in one moment. That's going to change. He vows it. He's going to spend the rest of his life convincing her that she is exactly how he sees her.

"People would mock you," Brienne retorts, backed into a metaphorical corner with Jaime disputing her every point. "People would say you wasted yourself on someone like me."

"Well they can fuck themselves," Jaime says. He cups the back of Brienne's neck, and tugs gently, dipping his head until their foreheads touch. "There are few people in this world whose opinion I care for. As long as you love me, I'm satisfied."

Brienne sighs, unable to keep a smile off her lips. "You're impossible. 'Why do I love you?' I ask myself."

"You admit it?" Jaime teases.

Brienne nods. "I do. For far too long. A more sensible woman would've given up and sought out other options."

"I'm glad you didn't," Jaime says sincerely. "I adore you, Ser Brienne of Tarth."

He's polite enough to kiss her so she doesn't have to respond.

They spend a few moments like that; simply kissing, enjoying one another's closeness and touch, till eventually, the touches become more insistent, and less innocent. Jaime is working his hands underneath the band of Brienne's trousers when there's a loud knock on the door.

"That'll be Podrick," Brienne murmurs, pulling back, smiling coyly at him. "I really should let him in."

Jaime grins. "Allow me," he says striding over to the door and yanking it open. Seeing Podrick's shocked expression -- eyes wide, mouth agape, utterly scandalized once more -- when Jaime answers the door makes his interruption of their moment worth it.

"Ser Jaime?" Podrick asks. "Is.... is Lady- _Ser_ Brienne with you?"

"Of course, this is her room," Jaime says, opening the door a little wider to let him see Brienne standing by the desk. He spots a book in Podrick's hand. "Is that what my lady requested you bring?"

Podrick nods, handing the book over to him, still staring at Jaime in shock. "I- I obtained it from Lady Sansa. She says it will be useful."

"Fantastic," Jaime quips. "That will be all, I think. If anyone asks for Ser Brienne in the next few hours, tell them she's otherwise occupied." Then he closes the door swiftly, leaving no time for Podrick to respond.

Thankfully, the boy's sensible enough to take a hint, as his quick footsteps echoing away from the room can attest. Jaime twists around, smiling at the annoyed look Brienne is giving him. "What? I never told him what you'd be occupied _with_. You were ordered to rest by your queen, after all." He slides away from the door, crossing the room and resting his hands on her hips. "Of course, if you're not tired, I'd be happy to help you find something to do." His thumb slips up to graze the skin at the jut of Brienne's hip.

Brienne swallows, licks her lips, and cups the back of Jaime's head. "You're a bloody nuisance, you know that?" she asks, but there's no malice in her words, only amusement. "Come here." She pulls him in.

They are both exhausted and battleworn and half-dead, and they should sleep. But some things are too important to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any inaccuracies/anachronisms. If anything is like, absolutely blatant, let me know.
> 
> Fic title was taken from Coldplay lyrics, because I can't think of titles for shit.


End file.
